Qinghai H5N1 Spread into Thuringen Germany
Recombinomics Commentary
July 3, 2007
The Thuringian health ministry said a black-necked grebe found dead in Kelbra near Erfurt was infected with the H5N1 strain of aviation influenza, which is potentially lethal to humans.
The above comments described another confirmed H5N1 positive in a third region in Germany. Thuringian is located between the two other confirmed outbreaks in Bavaria and Saxony. It is also located between the suspect outbreak in Assenoncourt, France and the confirmed outbreaks on two farms in Northwesten Czech Republic and a nature reserve near Lednice.
The multiple outbreaks in the heart of Western Europe in June and July indicate H5N1 is endemic in Europe, and has gone undetected for the past 12 months. This surveillance failure is similar to the failure to detect H5N1 in wild birds in the fall of 2005.
Moreover, to date no country in Western Europe has detected H5N1 in a live wild bird, further highlighting a surveillance system needs a serious ungrade.
When H5N1 was widely detected in dead resident wild birds throughout western Europe, the detection outbreak was said to be linked to a harsh winter that caused H5N1 infected birds to migrate to the west in the dead of winter. However, the massive outbreaks in Siberia in the spring predicted H5N1 would migrate throughout Europe in the fall and then through the Middle East and into Africa in the winter. H5N1 followed this route precisely.
The latest detection outbreak has been in the heart of Western Europe, largely in resident birds, in June and July, when there is minimal migration.
It is time for a robust and sensitive surveillance program. The recent sequences from wild birds infected in the spring of 2006 in Qinghai province have been released. These sequences had obvious recombination and polymorphisms that traced the movement of H5N1 to Astrakhan, Germany, and Western Africa. The sequences contain compelling data supporting recombination and polymorphism tracing. The polymorphism acquisitions were also demonstrated by the concurrent detection of the same polymorphism onto six different clade 2.2 genetic backbones in three countries, Russia, Egypt, and Ghana.
The spread and evolution of H5N1 demand a scientific analysis and serious surveillance.
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